Search - Parade, V.L.C. :: Parade / V.L.C. (W/Dvd)

Added dialogue is nice but can't beat the original

M.D.S | Fayetteville, NY | 01/20/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Now Jason Robert Brown is amazing. He could write a musical listing names in a phone book and I'd be all for it, but I feel that this Parade recording does not do justice to his Tony winning score.



I will say that I am used to the lush and beautiful original cast recording but the orchestrations on this CD are disappointing. I understand that its been revamped into a chamber piece but I don't know (just judging by the recording, I have seen neither performed live) if it can be done with this piece, specifically "Old Red Hills of Home" and "Where will you stand when the Flood Comes" sound weak and lose the power that they are supposed to hold over the listener.



The biggest problem with the recording are the accents and Leo Frank. English people + southern accents = unsuccessful mush, I would have preferred them to just stick with the English accent and not attempt Southern accents. Leo Frank, at least for the first half of the production is hard to listen to. His voice is so annoying at times that I really can't stand it. The best songs are when he is not singing. Although he sounds fine in the second half (the second half is by far much stronger than the first half). I don't know if the director wanted you to HATE Leo Frank with all his whining and complaining and voice but you do, and then have him change through the story...I don't know.



The rest of the cast is pretty good, especially Jim Connelly, he has a great voice.



I was completely let down with this recording because I love the show and score. It is still one of my favorite scores, and if not the best score of the last 10 years but this CD I feel is not a good interpretation. By the Lincoln Center Recording, memorize it, cherish it, love it, then by "Songs for a New World" and the "Last five Years" and "Wearing Someone Else's Clothes" because I believe that this Parade isn't even in the same league as his other recordings.



I didn't want to rip on this recording because I really wanted to love it but maybe I will grow to love it. Hopefully.



"

An excellent complement to the original

Steven Valenti | Cleveland, OH | 06/20/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This new recording of the 2007 London production of Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry's "Parade" is excellent. It's not a replacement for the fantastic 1999 recording, but it's a necessary complement-- a must-have for any musical fan, especially if, like me, you consider "Parade" among the finest modern musicals.



Based on the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish man falsely accused of murdering a young girl in the racist South of 1913, this is a grim but important story, deftly told with a smart script and some of the best theater music of the last decade. In all honesty, the original recording, with its lush orchestra and larger cast, shows off the music better. That's the disc I'll continue to throw on for casual listening. But for overall dramatic power, this one actually bests the original.



Containing all the music and dialogue, including some new music and smart revisions, this deluxe set offers the opportunity to really revel in what a well constructed piece of musical theater "Parade" is. The swiftly paced, suspenseful first act, in which Leo is charged and convicted (climaxing with the show's audacious courtroom scene), and the subtly moving love story of the second act, as Lucille attempts to free her husband, are all here to enjoy-- word for word and note for note. There is an intimate intensity brought by the smaller orchestra, and the strong cast, headed by Bertie Carvel and Lara Pulver as Leo and Lucille, serves the material with skill (Carvel and Pulver do a fine job differentiating themselves from the excellent portrayals by Brent Carver and Carolee Carmello on the original).



Admirably packaged on two discs (plus a dvd with a making-of featurette), this is an essential recording of an important work."

Great Recording!

Carlos Daudt | Dublin | 03/09/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I find this a brilliant recording of an amazing production. I would give it six stars if I could. I would just like to make a comment on the observation made above that Leo Frank in this version (Bertie Carvel) is annoying. The poster raises the point that maybe this was a deliberate directorial decision. Whether this was the director's (or actor's) idea, it worked wonderfully for me. In the beginning I had great difficulty sympathising with Leo's predicament. In the song in which he expresses his inability to understand and feel comfortable in his new cultural milieu ("How Can I Call this Home?), he struck me as a pedantic, judgemental geek. Little by little, however, my perception changed and I saw him as a vulnerable human being, who desperately needed to cling to his old, indigenous values in order to survive in a strange and hostile land. He reminded me, in a way, of Albert Camus' The Stranger, a man who is condemned not by what he actually did, but simply because he was different. Being nice, warm and likeable has nothing to do with being right or innocent. Great people become victim of injustice merely because they fail to appeal to the people in whose hands their destiny lie, often aggravating, vexing or alienating them. In a brilliant production of An Enemy of the People, Ian McKellen gave Dr Stockmann such unappealing psychological traits, that it made it impossible for him to gain adherents to the righteous cause he was defending, proving indeed that "the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone." By showing Leo as a flawed person, we get a sharper sense of his humanity and fragility, making his fate in the end all the more poignant. Great show!"